Thanks to the Israel lobby’s slander campaign against Max Blumenthal and his new book, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, I not only learned things about the Jewish state that I never knew, I also made a wonderful discovery – but more about that later. I confess I probably wouldn’t have read Goliath if not for the controversy it has generated: those squeals of pain coming from Israel’s apologists had to mean something, I figured. Either the book was egregiously unfair to the Jewish state or else a brilliant chronicle of its depredations against ordinary human decency. I had to read it in order to find out – and what I discovered both shocked and uplifted me, furthering my understanding not only of the Jewish state and its people but also of my own philosophy of libertarianism.

Goliath is an easy read on a subject that makes many very uneasy: although
it’s fairly long, it consists of many short vignettes told in the first person,
chronicling Blumenthal’s travels across the length and breadth of the Holy Land
– and the story it tells is alarming, especially for those who count themselves
among Israel’s friends.

For years, the Israeli body politic has been moving rightward – i.e. toward
militarism, ultra-nationalism, and religious fundamentalism – to such a degree
that it seems unrecognizable to those of us who belong to the older generation.
We remember – or think we remember – the Israel of Exodus, the brave
little upstart that defied the odds and, surrounded by enemies on every side,
made the desert bloom with the verdant fields of a liberal democracy.

Goliath proves that liberal democracy is now, for all intents and purpose,
defunct: indeed, it may have never existed in the first place. The book demonstrates
this on every page with brutal real-life firsthand reporting. Starting off slowly,
Blumenthal paints a portrait of a society living in a bubble, with the Israeli
Ashkenazi aristocracy on top, the Mizrahi drone-workers charged with police
work and other non-elite tasks near the bottom, and the Palestinian helots on
the lowest rung, eking out a problematic existence with all the legal and economic
factors pointing to their eventual expulsion from Israeli society. As the rightist
wave engulfs what had been the dream of socialist Zionists to build an egalitarian
society, and turns it into a bastion of religious nationalism and outright racism,
Blumenthal moves through this society-in-transition with the unforgiving eye
of a born documentarian, mercilessly exposing the hypocrisy, mendacity, and
criminality of a country that is coming unhinged.

How else are we to explain the fact that, during the attack on Gaza, IDF soldiers
killed an eight-year-old child, one Ibrahim
Awajah, and used his corpse for target practice? This was no isolated incident:
one by one we read the stories of disgusting atrocities carried out by the IDF
– how they lobbed a shell into the living room of Izeldeen Abuelaish, a Harvard-trained
fertility doctor and medical researcher who had helped many Israelis have children.
The shell decapitated two of his daughters and "shredded" his other
children "to pieces." As this was going on, Israelis sat on Parash
Hill, near Sderot, which offers a clear view of the Gaza Strip, watching the
slaughter and cheering as if it were the latest hit movie – spectators to their
own moral degeneration.

As if they were quite well aware of what they were becoming – indeed, had become
– ordinary Israelis reacted with hatred against anyone in their midst who held
up an unflattering mirror to their war hysteria. Right-wing demagogues like
Avigdor Lieberman, now Foreign Minister, demanded that antiwar protesters be
jailed. At Tel Aviv University, the youth organizer of the ultra-nationalist
Yisrael Beiteinu said antiwar protesters should be deprived of their citizenship,
to raucous cheers: the university’s reputation as a bastion of liberalism to
the contrary notwithstanding.

As Operation Cast Lead came to a horrific and bloody close, a poll taken by Daniel Bar-Tal, an eminent political psychologist, found that more than half of Israelis wouldn’t allow an Arab into their homes. A full 68 percent wouldn’t live in the same building as an Arab, while 63 percent said Arabs represented a dire security threat to the state of Israel. Forty percent said the government should deport them all or "encourage" them to leave. The backdrop to this was a rising tide within the political and clerical class of brazen racism. Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Ovadiah Yosef, screeched "It is forbidden to be merciful to the Arabs. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable!"

Blumenthal’s portrait of Avigdor Lieberman is something the scandal-plagued right-wing demagogue and former bouncer may never recover from: while Lieberman has earned the contempt of the liberal Ashkenazi "coastal elite," as Blumenthal dubs them, in America he is less well-known. Blumenthal’s account of how this "hulking bear-like man" hunted down a twelve-year-old Arab boy and beat him up for punching his son – slamming him into a wall and "leaving him with a painful head wound" – captures the essence of a born bully. A legal "fixer" allowed the thuggish politician to get off with just a fine.

An immigrant from Russia, where he was a nobody, Lieberman came to Israel and founded a party, Yisrael Beiteinu, that is the most successful fascist political formation in the world: the party advocates a truculent mix of domestic authoritarianism and territorial expansionism, the expulsion of all Arabs and the forced "Judaization" of the West Bank. His nationalism, however, is entirely secular: he and his followers have no interest in the Torah, or the 3,000 year tradition of Jewish moral and political law. As Blumenthal puts it, "He was content to allow the army to define who was a Jew." His "politics melded authoritarian populism with a distinctly anti-clerical strain, appealing to anyone who loathed the presence of Muslims, radical leftists, and the ultra-Orthodox."

Unfortunately, as Blumenthal writes, "there was no shortage of citizens in Israel who held this sentiment."

Lieberman’s crudeness is well-known to observers of Israeli politics, but in
the US his ties to Mafia figures may be less widely understood: Michael Cherney,
a Russian Jewish oligarch, paid Lieberman half a million through a Cypriot shell
firm, and is known to have ties to criminal gangs in the former Soviet Union.
The two, says Cherney, were in daily communication. Another supporter of dubious
moral character: Martin Schlaff, whose connections to the East German Stasi
made him a rich man. Evidence of Schlaff’s $3.5 million payoff to Ariel Sharon
in exchange for permission to build a casino in Israel was rendered moot when
Sharon fell into a coma from which he has yet to emerge. Schlaff then became
a major backer of Yisrael Beiteinu, as Lieberman took in millions in mysterious
payments through a company run by his daughter. After gaining 11 Knesset seats,
Lieberman was named Minister of Warmongering "Strategic
Threats" in Ehud Olmert’s rather shaky government. Today he is Foreign
Minister, after being temporarily kicked out of the government while being investigated
for fraud, the David Duke of Israel to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s George
Wallace.

What is particularly shocking in Blumenthal’s book is its exposure of the explicit racism that has become commonplace in Israeli society. When Anastasia Michaeli, a Yisrael Beitenu MK, served on a panel charged with choosing someone to represent Israel in the Eurovision song contest, she objected to one contestant because he "looks Arab." In her defense, she stated: "I am looking at this competition from a Zionist point of view."

If so, it isn’t any sort of Zionism the older Ashkenazi elite would recognize. But that’s the point: the "new" Zionism is something else altogether.

The theme of this book is encapsulated in its portrayal of one of my heroes
– or, I should say, my newest hero, since I had no knowledge of him before reading
Blumenthal’s work: his name is Yeshayahu Leibowitz. The Israeli polymath, who
fled Germany in 1933 and emigrated to Palestine where he taught brain physiology
at Tel Aviv University, starting teaching philosophy at the age of 72 (!), was
an Orthodox Jewish scholar who edited the Encyclopedia Hebraica – and
a hardcore libertarian only a little less radical than Murray Rothbard, whom
he resembles in style and mannerisms to an amazing degree. As the Independentdescribes
him,

"On the one hand he was a libertarian, an extreme form of classical liberalism, and believed that human beings should be free to determine their way of life without any state interference. On the other hand, he was an ultra-Orthodox Jew who insisted that the state and religion must be separated completely to avoid corrupting each other.

"Leibowitz argued vehemently for two positions: that holding any state as a value in itself was inherently fascist and that sanctifying any piece of land, including Israel, was a form of idolatry. Very soon after the Six-Day War, Leibowitz predicted that if Israel didn’t withdraw immediately from the occupied territories, all of the state’s energy would be tied up in ruling another people against its will."

We first encounter Leibowitz in the form of a slogan emblazoned on the wall
of a lecture hall, where Blumenthal has gone to accompany a "human rights"
educator assigned to instruct the Israeli Border Guard in how to make their
job conform to the most basic principles of human decency – an impossible task,
as Leibowitz had predicted. Nevertheless, there on the wall was what Blumenthal
calls an "anodyne quote" – both a tribute to Leibowitz’s importance
in Israeli society and a monument to the utter cluelessness of a regime that
has appropriated the memory of its most incisive and unforgiving critic.

While he was indeed a Zionist, who believed – as I do – that Jews living in Palestine have the right to national self-determination, it was Leibowitz’s critique of the particular circumstances of Israel’s nation-building project that allowed him to see the society he was living in in realistic terms. In a prescient essay published on the eve of Israel’s great victory in the 1967 war – when the rest of Israeli society was celebrating and the Likud party was getting its start as the "Movement for a Greater Israel" – the man Isaiah Berlin called "the conscience of Israel" foretold the fate of the Jewish state if it absorbed its new conquests into the realm:

"The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police – mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 million to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would have to suppress the Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations."

And so it came to pass.

Israel, "unpartitioned Eretz Israel," would become like the apartheid state of South Africa, Leibowitz warned: racism would overwhelm the culture. Instead of filling the concrete needs of its citizens, the Jewish state, Leibowitz said, would devote itself to "the specific tasks of government and administration of this strange system of political domination."

When it was revealed that an Arab woman who had been arrested for belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization was handcuffed while she gave birth to her child, Leibowitz took to calling the perpetrators – the government – "Judeo-Nazis." As the IDF overran the Occupied Territories, he wrote that the final phases of Israel’s moral and political degeneration would see the appearance of "concentration camps" – at which point "Israel would not deserve to exist, and it will not be worthwhile to preserve it."

The vast system of prisons and "administrative detention" camps set up by the Israelis to detain thousands of Palestinians held without charge – as well as the giant concentration camp being constructed to intern African refugees who have turned up seeking asylum – is well documented in Goliath. Indeed, we follow Blumenthal as he takes us into the heart of this monster, and he tells the story of resisters and just plain ordinary people caught up in the maleficent wheels of an oppressive system. As both Palestinians and Israelis-with-a-conscience are arrested arbitrarily, held without charges, and abused , we hear their cries for help – and, sitting there, we want to help.

What kind of a "liberal democracy" segregates its citizens according
to their ethnic affiliation, with entire Palestinian towns – whose inhabitants
are indeed citizens of Israel – walled off from "Israel proper" and
forced into destitution and ruin by petty regulations forbidding commerce and
building renovation? What kind of "democracy" has a police state apparatus fully mobilized to detect and crush even the slightest form of nonviolent dissent,
responding to peaceful demonstrations with bullets and brutal repression? The
knock on the door in the night – a feature of Nazi Germany, or any totalitarian
system – is a regular occurrence in Goliath: activists, both Palestinian
and Israeli, who are organizing for peaceful change are harassed, arrested,
beaten, and attacked. The chilling conformity of Israeli society, where "patriotism"
and militarism are the norm, is depicted here in disturbing detail.

Particularly shocking is the degree to which segregationist policies, going far beyond those of the old American South, are openly and even enthusiastically advocated even by the ostensibly "liberal" Ashkenazis. The stretching of the law to allow for "Jews only" housing, roads, and entire towns is dramatized over and again by the stories of people whose fate is a plaything in the hands of a police state: one couple must give up their sun-filled home in a good area for life in a dark slum because one doesn’t have the right papers and will be deported if they move. Villages where people have lived since the time of Christ are demolished, the inhabitants driven out and "Jewish only" communities arise out of the ruins – all paid for and justified by the Israeli government, which is being funded to the tune of $3.5 billion per year by you and I.

Yes. Israel still has a relatively free press, but military censorship is a
reality: yes, they have elections, but the electorate is poisoned by a crazed
nationalism and a racist streak that resembles the Ku Klux Klan at its height:
formally, Israel is still a "democracy," but Leibowitz was right when
he declared that "Israel is the only dictatorship that exists today in
the enlightened world." It is a "democratic" despotism based
on blood, soil, and conquest, and it is fast losing even its formal democratic
character: e.g., when the Supreme Court makes decisions the government disagrees
with, such as the right of Palestinians who are Israeli citizens to organize
protests, the court is ignored. And nothing is said. Increasingly there are
attempts by the far right to make it impossible for open dissent to assert itself:
laws demanding a "loyalty oath" of all citizens, and blatant attempts
to stifle speech are increasingly in the air. The desire for an "Israeli
Putin," a strong leader who will dispense with the "democratic"
niceties, transfer the Arabs out, and unite the nation around the vision of
a Greater Israel, is palpable. This is the vision of Lieberman and his fellow
rightists, many of whom emigrated from Russia in the 1980s, and it is increasingly
the Israeli reality.

Yes, my longtime readers will note that I’ve been covering this upsurge of
Israeli ultra-nationalism in this space for years, but Blumenthal’s book dramatizes
this depressing scenario in a series of on-the-scene episodes that have real
impact. Added up, they amount to a new insight into the direction Israeli society
is taking.

Of particular concern to the Israelis and their Western amen corner is the movement for nonviolent resistance to the apartheid state, which is being taken up by both Palestinians and Israeli leftists, including the BDS campaign to boycott Israeli goods: this movement has been ruthlessly crushed wherever it has arisen, but it just keeps bouncing back – much to the consternation of the publicity-conscious regime, which is horrified by the prospect of the whole world watching as nonviolent Palestinians and their Israeli comrades are brutalized by their thugs. The Israelis are truly the Bull Connors of the new millennium.

It is now illegal to advocate boycotting Israeli goods inside Israel, or to memorialize "the Nakba" – the 1948 expulsion of the Palestinians from
their historic homeland. Mob attacks on Palestinians right in the center of
Jerusalem are commonplace, along with vicious attacks – including the arson
of an orphanage – on African refugees. This coarsening – brutalization, really
– of Israeli society is something one imagines Leibowitz would have despised
had he lived to see it. The mere fact that the Israelis routinely arrest and
torture Palestinian children as young as eight should be enough to delegitimize
the "Jewish state" in the eyes of the world – that is, if enough eyes
see it.

Libertarians will love this book for two reasons: 1) It underscores our emphasis on the centrality of absolute property rights as the basis of a society that is both civilized and free. The systematic violation of the Palestinians’ property rights is the key to understanding how the Israelis turned them into a class of helots, without any rights or legal recourse. And 2) the discovery of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a towering intellectual figure who was indeed the most hardcore of hardcore libertarians. Go here, here and here for a taste of his radicalism. No, I haven’t read any of his books yet, but I am certainly going to read this one. Leibowitz, whom I had barely heard of before reading Goliath, is Blumenthal’s great Christmas gift to libertarians: the discovery of a major libertarian thinker is a wonderful surprise.

Excellent Review Justin. But with respect, in my opinion, Exodus was a fairy tale. It has always been headed to this from the very beginning in the late 40's.

Steve

Correct opinion, IMO…

Ben_C

I think this is noteworthy:

"The United States military cooperation with Israel has never been stronger. Our intelligence cooperation with Israel has never been stronger. Our support of Israel’s security has never been stronger. Whether you’re talking about Iron Dome, whether you’re talking about trying to manage the situation in Gaza a little over a year ago, across the board, our coordination on the concrete issues facing Israel’s security has never been stronger. And that’s not just my opinion; I think that’s something that can be verified."

Although this didn't seem to be covered here in great detail, anyone who caught even part of this little "chat" with Obama discussing US/Israel "relations' may know 'we' could be in serious…serious..trouble here with respect to several "issues"…

BTW,,,Obama has a new 'saying', and it goes like this: "no deal is better than a bad deal"…

This man is driving me insane!

RickR30

"Israel is the only dictatorship that exists today in the enlightened world." Except that israel isn't part of the enlightened world or the West. It's abomination that exists at the fringes of humanity. The fact that a bunch of people there have degrees from harvard or some other social club disguised as a university doesn't change things, it makes them more abhorrent.

John Dowser

But it is part of the supposedly "enlightened" world and yet it isn't. That's why it could be called schizophrenic. As if a State, as entity, could suffer from a mental disorder. But perhaps it can! More accurately would then be: paranoid schizophrenic. Next to the State you still have a legal and advanced scientific establishment combined with economical markets (which might not exist without the gift baskets but okay) which all contribute to the form of some enlightened world but it doesn't mean it functions like one at its foundations.

RickR30

let's call it high-tech barbarism then. Just being high tech doesn't entail enlightenment or civilization.

goldhoarder

When Ghandi was asked what he thought of Western civilization he said he thought "it would be a good idea."

jane

Justin this is very interesting, however it comes as no surprise to most of us.

"We remember – or think we remember – the Israel of Exodus, the brave little upstart that defied the odds and, surrounded by enemies on every side, made the desert bloom with the verdant fields of a liberal democracy."

You've mentioned this movie before with reverence, however, I have long since ceased seeing Exodus as anything other than the piece of Hollywood Mogel propaganda that it is and no longer harken back to with any feelings of nostalgia. It was a brazen misrepresentation of the facts on the ground and I could never sit through it again without blowing chow. Hollywood has been engaged in this type of manipulation of the masses throughout the 1st and 2nd world wars right up to the present.

jane

– continued as apparently my comment was too long…

Immediately after the 1947 UN Partition of Palestine and the pulling out of Britain, the "brave little upstart" began a campaign of ethnic cleansing and theft of Palestinian property and mass murder. From December 25th of 1947 onwards, the Israelis were engaged in invasions and attacks on the Palestinians every day of the calendar year in the 1948 War. They never took/take a day off from their bloody aggression.

Sixty something years of this failed apartheid enterprise should be wrapped up in the same manner South Africa's apartheid state was brought down – through sanctions and boycotts.

sherban

Of course ,Goliath doesn't appear in Israel,and in short time the book will be forgotten.The same fate befell on books by Chomsky,Finkelstein,Pappe,Shahak,Shlaim and many others and what rest is the imagine of Israel as a "vibrant democracy",imagine which is daily ,in different ways,is the subtext of every movie,article,official speech.How the Israeli people agree with every repugnant things did by Israel to Palestinians?I think that the people fully accepted the oxymoron slogan "Israel is a Jewish democracy".The Jews from non European countries who are indeed at an inferior rung in Israeli society protest sometimes to receive the same status as European Jews but never ,for the rights of non Jews or for the rights of Palestinians who are the most handicapped. The endless discussion for the rights of homosexuals give to public the illusion of an enlightened country,especially that for comparison are told, time and again,about the "czar" Putin attitude in the issue.In the mind of every person from West, every one from Occident belongs to an elite at which no one from Russia,China,Iran,India etc.would be sincerely accepted.Israel is considered a continuer of these great traditions.Take for instance Putin's article from NYT which is in my view very well motivated and the reaction of a nobody Congressman who reading the article feels the need to vomit saying in rage "how he dares to critique US".A tribunal from Kuala Lumpur found Israel,after a trial and long debates,guilty of serious crime against humanity but who in West knows it and whom is impressed by a tribunal from Kuala Lumpur? ,And at the base of Israeli public certainty of his moral standard is the Holocaust which is every day reminded in many forms and is the principal axis which support the education in Israel.Beginning with the next year the children from kindergarten will learn of Holocaust ,this is the decision of the minister of education.Entire world is guilty .What no one recall is that in the time of ww2 the Ishuv,namely the would be Israel-terrorized England's army.Goliath will occupy a place on the shelve of "antisemitic" books without echo in Israel for which is ,probably,written.

tadzio308

Great article. One caveat. The child Avigdor Lieberman molested was not Arab, the lad was Jewish. The incident took place within a "settlement" and the kid was slammed against his parents' trailer. Were the boy an Arab he would have been killed and the Racist Israeli court would not have given a fig about a Christian or a Muslim life.

Bill Kelsey

I caught that too. Almost finished the book. It's a wonderful contribution to the discussion.

liberal

Interestingly, de Gaulle also warned them not to occupy the West Bank, for similar reasons.

richard vajs

You show real courage, Justin – letting the facts steer your mind instead of the other way around. Israel needs to just go – I doubt it can be reformed anymore than the old Union of South Africa could be reformed. It was conceived in sin and is now a full grown monster. Hopefully it can be done away with without hurting innocent Jews like Y. Leibowitz. Israel needs a Mandela.

Mike,
The important thing about Mandela is that although he was abused by the "white- only" government, when the tables turned, he was more interested in restoring peaceful relations rather than taking revenge or "giving them what they gave me". One has to admire that – It doesn't matter whether Mandela was a communist or – a Republican. And yes, Israel needs a Mandela – not another jerk like Netanyahu or Lieberman who believes that the Holocaust entitles them, by heritage, to in turn abuse the Palestinians

OBSERVATOR

Although it is true to call Israel "the Jewish State", May I suggest that we talk about the "State of Israel". Despite Israeli attempts to suggest that anyone who criticises this fascist country is anti-Jewish, that is not the case. It is important to make a clear distinction between largely honourable international Jewry and the curious faction that currently governs Israel and exercises apartheid and other atrocities against United Nations resolutions.

Wondering

Why is the zionist entity always called a "state" instead of a "country"? Please do not tell me that they can be used as synonyms. I need another explanation. Thank you.

jpbreon

Excellent point, one I bring up all the time. First we must understand that those two terms are not synonymous. A country is an area where the inhabitants generally share common values, cultural mores, and so on, whereas a state is a monopoly of violence that seeks to operate in a geographical area. One exists independent of human input while the other must have it. Everyone in Pennsylvania (where I live) views themselves as Pennsylvanians first, Americans second, and if the USG disappeared tomorrow (we can dream!) and Harrisburg shut down, that would not change.

Monster from the Id

The Ratzification of Israel reminds me of the sad old syndrome of battered children who grow up to be battering parents, and/or violent criminals of other sorts.

RyanSmurfy

Don't forget the collateral damage to the USA for our sellout to the Zionists that created Israel: the election of Harry Truman, who repudiated a peace economy for a perpetual war economy.

"If not for my friend Abe [Feinberg], I couldn’t have made the [whistle-stop train] trip and I wouldn’t have been elected," Truman stated.

According to an article in Counterpunch, "Feinberg’s activities began a process that made the Jews … the most conspicuous fundraisers and contributors to the Democratic Party.’"

"philosophy of libertarianism"? it means, i suspect, "inegalitarianism" or inequality in political power on racial, ethnic, and personal levels.
in short, an utter rule by rich people, but with no foolish wars–only ones really needed. ok, if not so, then tell us what kind of society and governance would libertarians nurture?

muggles

A most foolish and ignorant post. That you pose a loaded question at the end reveals the depth of your lack of knowledge or familiarity with libertarian ideas or thinking. Come on, this isn't 1965. Educate yourself.
The idea that libertarianism promotes "rule by the rich" (as opposed to the various varieties of statism) is laughable. Cartoon complaints about some imaginary set of beliefs does nothing but expose your failure to do anything more than react like a yapping dog to something you have no real clue about. Sad really.

"ok, if not so, then tell us what kind of society and governance would libertarians nurture?"

For once I'm going to be a nice guy about this. Here: Mises.org. Since you're completely ignorant about this please start reading and find out the answer to your question.

bozhidar balkas

it's up to you tell the world what you are for or against. i'm against classful societies. i am for an more or less an egalitarian society.
libertarians don't say that they are for a classless society nor an egalitarian structure of society.
so, that's all i know. i also know that some of you appear quite uncivlized; so, how are you better than the on interpersonal level better than ultra right, skinheads, klanners?
you think you'd attract people to your cause by talking to people as if they are subhumans. it makes no sense.

Ah, now I'm a skinhead or Klansman. Since I'm not guilty of murder, torture, or any other uncivilized act it is quite hilarious to see someone else try to pigeonhole me into that box. Whether you think I'm "uncivilized" or not is not relevant. What is relevant is pushing your ego aside, clicking the mouse a couple of times and start reading. It's not that hard. Really….it isn't.

Lastly, calling someone ignorant (which about this you are) is the same thing as pretending they are subhuman? That's just ridiculous. And you know what? You KNOW it. Spare me. Now start clicking and go read.

He was asserting that some Jews he doesn't like aren't "real" Jews because, you see, instead of the Jews deciding who they are, he gets to decide who they are. Or something like that.

There are plenty of places where stuff like that is welcome. This isn't one of them. If you want to criticize Israel, feel free. If you want to pick on Jews, go elsewhere.

(addendum note: After writing this comment, I noticed another one in which "balkas" says he sincerely hopes I ban him if I don't agree with his bizarre racial theories. I live to serve. He's gone – TLK)

bozhidar balkas

my rule as an egalitarian [one can call me also communist, socialist] is not to get personal. i am terrible typist; so, calling people names takes too much time from me; so, i avoid it like a plague.
i criticize and rigorously reject zionism. i deem it imperialism.
i don't call israeli leaders names.

Well, whatever you're saying they sure don't like it. According to Thomas you're being racist. If you are then cut it out. Criticize Israel or any other government all you want. All governments suck to one degree or another anyway.

bozhidar balkas

my reply to you cannot get thru. so, as you can see, this administrator discriminates and lies about what i actually said.

bozhidar balkas

one reply to you was allowed.
but if i try to restate what i actually said–and witch the tsar to blocks even before reading it–it gets blocked.
but he also blocks lot of other of my posts dealing with other issues.
it has to do with politics, i think!

Werner

They can censor and delete all the comments they want in a fearful, cowardly, pathetic and desparate attempt to supress the facts about you-know-who. But the truth is coming out more and more and there is no stopping it unless the internet gets shut down, but the cat is already out of the bag.

It's not "censorship," Werner. You're free to say whatever you like. But we have no obligation to provide your microphone. It's not complicated: If the things you want to say fit in at Stormfront or VNN but not at Antiwar.com, go say them there instead of here.

bozhidar balkas

of course. it's the new censor tsar who decides what is published and not actual facts. yes, this is a solely political page[ politics is dirty; so one expects dirt from politicians.
for that reason, i have never given a penny to this fascist site.

jane

I must take a moment to acknowledge Justin Raimondo's courageous reporting on this most volatile of subjects and setting down the facts and realities in that god-forsaken place that is Israel! Also, my hat off to Mr. Blumenthal and all other Jews who have dared to stand up and expose the brutality of this regime.

With regard to the 'Exodus' myth, whether that book and/or movie is an accurate depiction of the events leading up to the independence of Israel is not the point. The point is that the book and movie were the story that was portrayed to the US public, and the founding story of Israel- to many- is known only through these entertainment offerings. Israel was 'sold' to the US under that guise and it was bought by a great many.

As for myself, I would love to think that the book and move are more documentary than historical fiction, but I know that's not the case.

The problem that arises now with the 'Exodus' myth is that now Israel has to either discount that story as complete rubbish or turn the clock back to what was supposed to have been a positive historical event between Jews and Muslims. We know the latter isn't going to happen, so by default Israel must disavow any of the positive political rhetoric or goodwill towards Arabs as depicted in the story.

In short, by continuing down the road of fascism and ultra-nationalism, Israel has declared its founding purpose null and void and rendered its history to the waste bin of despotic nations. I wonder what those Jews who languished in the work camps would think now of their dream of 'next year in Jerusalem'- would they still want to go there if they knew it would be ruled by such a government?

As I am Jewish, the *concept* of a true Israel is a treasured one- but the reality of the *state* of Israel today leaves much to be desired.

muggles

Two excellent books published fairly recently, both by Prof. Schlomo Sand, are "The Invention of the Jewish People" and "The Invention of the State of Israel." Dr. Sand is a professor of ancient Middle Eastern history (primarily Israel) at Tel Aviv University.
Both books are extremely well researched, full of footnotes, and quite deep about the subjects discussed. Read the Jewish People book first (it was published first). Amazing research with none of the usual crazed cant or bias found in these subjects. Dr. Sand is of course himself Jewish though as he discusses in his first book, what that really means to various groups is somewhat elusive. As likely relevant to understanding the past as "Goliath" is to contemporary Israeli politics.

You believe jews living in Palestine have a right to self determination? What a load of crock man, how about the original inhabitants, the ones who never left the holly land for centuries? This right of self determination will be on their aspirations and own right of self determination.
When this chatty country was created, it had the help of all the major powers at that time, Britain, France, the USSR and the US while the Arabs were just emerging out of the ottoman slumber that lasted 400 years. Where the hell is the miracle? It was just pure unadulterated murder and ethnic cleansing. Ask any old palestinian or even Israeli historians and they will tell you.
Sorry Justin but you lost me, I do not have any faith in your motives or intentions anymore.

jane

James, I too questioned this line. Why should a group of eastern europeans who have no relationship to the Jews who left what is now Palestine nearly 3,000 years ago (except ideologically), have any rights to self-determination or any rights period over the rights of those who have actually lived there for those 3,000 years and even before?

[moderator’s note: If you can name a single individual who has lived in Palestine for 3,000 years or more, I’ll cheerfully agree that he or she has more rights to live there than normal people who only live ~70 years – TLK]

james

Jane, what drives me nuts is the assertion that it was a miracle to create that country.

jane

I surrender!

bozhidar balkas

yes, even communist countries had recognized the theft of palestinian land by war and expulsions.

PEACE EVER AFTER

Denigrating David Duke or George C. Wallace by comparing them to some of the Zionist despots is totally out of order. Both David Duke and George Wallace renounced racism many years ago. Wallace was subsequently re-elected numerous times by black majorities. Duke also renounced racism and is now being crucified for his youthful indiscretions. He simply believes in equal treatment for all racial and religious groups. Neither fits the mold of the tyrants that now rule Israel.

bozhidar balkas

it seems to me that david duke had learned a bitter lesson from you-know-whom!

It is not like any of this is new. Lieberman just wipes away the liberal illusions. The founders of Israel were terrorists. But one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. If you take the emotion out of it, Israel should be viewed as a military colonial beachhead of Western Civilization on the lands of Islam (look at a map. Doesn't it look like a beachhead ?). Don't imagine for an instant that the Muslims would hesitate to behead every last Israeli Jew if they had the power to do so. The two sides have hated each other with a passion from the beginning of the Zionist colonization. The only reason Israel was forced by the US to not expel the Palestinians 4 decades ago is the politics of oil. And now that the oilfields of the Mideast are starting to run down, and the US has its own new sources due to fracking, that is less of a concern.

In fact, why does anyone give the proverbial rat's rear about Israel anyway? It is a tiny colony of 7 million Jews with about the land area of New Jersey, which is very small in the global scheme of things. There are bigger ethnic conflicts all over the globe. We care for 2 reasons – (1) in a very real sense it is our colony, at least of our civilization upon the land conquered long ago by a very hostile and alien civilization called Islam, and (2) there are more than one billion Muslims, and they care far more about an invasion from an alien civilization than about run of the mill fights that happen anywhere else in Africa or Asia.

goldhoarder

If oil is not a concern why is the US in Afghanistan and still trying to manipulate Iraq?

Sounds like the Israelis are becoming Palestinian in outlook and behavior. After living under the threat of genocide for so long, and seeing all efforts at any real peace come to naught, it's understandable. Beat on a fella long enough, at some point he says, "Screw it," and starts beating back.

I'm not saying that this is good; it's just what people do, given certain stimuli.

sharonsj

Justin, where are your articles condemning the following apartheid countries?

Jordan–Jews are not allowed to own land or become citizens.
Syria–Jews are not allowed to join the military, have a government job, or work in finance.
Libya–Jews are not allowed to own or transfer real property, and any Jew can have their money and property confiscated by the government.
Lebanon–all Jewish citizens are called "Israeli" on their identification cards and, as such, are prevented from working or living in many areas.
Egypt–In 1956 all Jews were declared enemies of the state; half the population left and were forced to give up their property. In 1967, all remaining Jews were expelled or imprisoned.

You know I could go through a long list of every Muslim country and their ill treatment of Jews, or point out yet again that Israel does not occupy Gaza, but why bother, when most of the people here aren't interested in facts.

Richard S.

A very well-written review, Justin. I hope to see it on Amazon book reviews where I can click it as "very helpful" in deciding whether to buy it.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].